


Circles

by no_net_ensnaresme



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Minor Aiden/Lydia Martin, Minor Stiles Stilinski/Original Female Character(s), Romance, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-20
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-18 17:43:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9396101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/no_net_ensnaresme/pseuds/no_net_ensnaresme
Summary: “I can’t believe I got everything I ever wanted,” Lydia wondered in amazement as she caressed the glossy yearbook photos.She could hear Stiles pacing her open apartment, touching the things on her walls as he bitterly mumbled, “Yeah, Lydia. You got it all. Congratulations.”Otherwise known as the "13 Going on 30" AU that no one asked for, but I decided to write anyways.





	1. Blindfold

Lydia had always known it was the way of the world that most things in life were not permanent. Friends came and went. Love was fickle. Physical beauty faded with time. Life was at the mercy of death. So why, as she looked distraught in her vanity mirror, did she feel as though her hair would never be the same. 

Lydia moved her hands to her scalp, calmly reciting to herself the facts she’d frantically researched about hair growth as soon as she had seen the war zone her hair had become after an unfortunate miscommunication between she, the hairdresser, and her mother.

“Hair grows .3 to .4mm per day. Six inches per year. Half an inch per month. If my active phase of growth is long,” she whimpered to herself, unable to tear her eyes away from her reflection, even as she listened to Stiles walk into her bedroom, seemingly mid-sentence,

“You know what makes me crazy? Tobey Maguire was such a great Peter Parker. He was. And yet, somehow, he sucked at being Spiderman. The world is a cruel, cruel place Lydia Martin.” 

Lydia responded despondently, briefly looking back at Stiles as he hopped over the clothes lying on her bedroom floor without dropping the handful of movies and comic books he was carrying, “The real travesty is that I let you drag me to Spiderman 3, knowing that it would be terrible and still had to listen to you criticize it for three months.” 

She watched Stiles shrug, unaffected as he plopped down on her comforter, turning his attention to one of his comics, “I thought the trailers may have been misleading.” 

Lydia didn’t answer, returning her attention to her reflection, feeling herself fall deeper into a pit of despair. She watched in the mirror as Stiles looked up distractedly from his comic book, puckering his eyebrows in confusion at the unexpected pause in banter, his long, shaggy hair flopping into his eyes at the sudden jerk of his head, “You okay?” 

Lydia groaned dramatically and dropped her head into her hands, “No,” she drew out as she listened to Stiles pull up a desk chair beside her and felt one of his hands rest comfortingly on her back, “What’s wrong?” 

“I let my mother convince me that a haircut was a good idea,” Stiles snorted to himself before replying, “Your hair looks great, Lydia.”

Lydia looked up with narrow, disbelieving eyes, her eyebrows puckered, “Because you are morally obligated as my best friend to tell me I look ‘great,’ your opinion holds no weight and cannot be used as objective proof to contest the fact that I look like Britney Spears a la 2007.” 

Stiles rolled his eyes, “You do not look like you just had a nervous breakdown.” 

“I might as well have! Do you see this haircut? Only a person on the brink of losing their mind would have allowed this!” 

“Okay, but see, by your own logic it doesn’t look like you had a nervous breakdown. Only that you’re on the brink of one.” Stiles raised his eyebrows and smiles. Lydia stared at him, unblinkingly and unamused.

The two stared back at each other for approximately ten seconds before Stiles groaned and rubbed his eyes, moving his hand from Lydia’s back to his knee where he tapped out a non-distinct pattern before looking down at his white socks, a stark contrast of color against Lydia’s beige carpet. Lydia, for her part, remained unmoved by his inability to remain still and returned her attention once more to her reflection in the mirror. 

Stiles looked up from his socks to see Lydia tugging at the roots of her hair, eyes wide with horror before shaking his head and looking back down at the floor, “Lydia, you don’t need to worry about your hair, okay?” 

Lydia stopped her intense, and admittedly painful and moot ritual of pulling on her hair follicles to look at the top of his shaggy head, confused, “Why?”

Stiles raised his eyes to look at Lydia. Every so often, Lydia found herself frozen at how sincere Stiles could be when the moment so warranted. Stiles didn’t hide himself from people. Lydia always used to tease them when they were younger that she and every other person in his life could read him like a book and until he learned a proper poker face he would never be able to get away with anything. Stiles repeatedly insisted the fact that his father was the Sheriff was the sole reason why he could never convince him of his lies. This continued to be a point of contention between she and Stiles. 

So when Stiles finally focused his attention on her own eyes after a careful and thorough inspection of her face, Lydia felt her breath catch in her throat. She forced herself to keep her eyes locked onto his, watching his lips twist into the same sort of half smile he used to give her when she would force him to watch her model all of the outfits her parents would buy her in a haze of guilt and attempt to appease Lydia for all of their shortcomings, “Because you always look beautiful.” 

Lydia pressed her lips together and let herself be released from the magnetic pull of his gaze. She stared at the spot Stiles was looking at prior to his confession, trying not to smile as she whispered, “Really?” Only looking up to see Stiles respond.

Stiles smiled at her and his eyes shined with something, Lydia convincing herself that it was just the sun filtering in through her window, as he nodded, finally filling the silence by saying, “Plus, hair grows, so even if you choose not to believe me, before you know it your hair will be back to what you have arbitrarily chosen as the ‘perfect length.’”

Lydia allowed herself to laugh as she rolled her eyes at him, turning her attention to the mirror one last time and pursing her lips contemplatively, tilting her head to the side, “And I guess hats are still in, in the meantime.”

Lydia shrugged as she turned her body to look at Stiles who hadn’t torn his eyes from Lydia yet, smiling contently before chuckling with her and pushing back the desk chair and leaping up towards her bed again where his comic book lay open, waiting for him to resume where he had abruptly left off, “Exactly. I knew Lydia Martin: Genius Extraordinaire would come around.” 

\- -- -- -- --

Lydia felt her foot tapping on the sidewalk that divided her house and Stiles’s before she was consciously aware that her impatience had physically manifested itself. She absentmindedly busied herself with the hat she had perched on her head in a vain attempt to mask the disaster underneath and smiled to herself. Despite the five stages of grief she had experienced over the course of the past two days, she had finally reached acceptance as she flitted across the mall and online, buying every stylish hat she could find to wear until her hair had returned to its normal length. Besides, Lydia had convincingly persuaded herself that this could be her chance to be a trendsetter, taste the sweetness of popularity and power. 

Lydia let herself fantasize about her future popularity for a few moments before looking at her watch again and sighing. Finally, just as she was about to march up to Stiles’s house and drag him to the bus stop, she heard his front door open and slam shut with muffled curses. Lydia shook her head and smiled at who she assumed to be Stiles race towards her, even though his face was completely hidden underneath a mass of balloons tangled up in his hands.

“Happy Birthday!” Stiles shouted from behind the balloons, shoving the ribboned strings towards her waiting hands. Lydia snorted trying to untangle the strings from Stiles’s hands, not looking up until she had freed him from the balloons.

“Oh my god. What did you do?” Lydia gasped in horror, her eyes locked on his essentially bald head. His long, shaggy, floppy hair gone. Shaved. Buzzed. 

Stiles, still red in the face from the exertion of running, either simply didn’t hear her or pointedly ignored her question, instead choosing to respond by shouting, “Happy Birthday!” again, dropping his backpack to the ground and digging through it distractedly before grunting an ‘a ha!’ and lifting a camera from the front pocket victoriously and knocking the hat delicately placed on her head askew.

Lydia growled and tried in vain to fix her hat with one hand, the other now holding her balloon bouquet, “Thank you. Now please enlighten me on why half your body weight is gone.” 

Stiles gave her one sarcastic, unamused laugh, snapping a quick picture before answering, “I shaved my head. Well, I didn’t shave it, my barber did, but the end result is the same, although I don’t know had I shaved it myself if it would have come out as even as the barb-”

Lydia cut him off, “I’m not blind, Stiles. I see that you shaved your head. I want to know why you voluntarily chose to do this.” 

Stiles’s eyes widened, “Oh. Well, I had to have my hair cut anyways, my dad was getting on my back about how it wasn’t safe to have my hair impairing my vision,” 

“Yes, given the fact you can barely walk in a straight line with perfect eyesight.” Lydia responded primly as she turned around and began her walk down the sidewalk towards the bus stop, knowing he would be right behind her. Lydia would not be late for school, whether Stiles had obviously had a nervous breakdown yesterday or not.

Stiles narrowed his eyes, unamused, running to catch up with her, “Anyways, I’m sitting in the barber’s chair and he’s getting his scissors out for a routine trim and all I can hear is your comment about looking like Britney Spears circa 2007,” 

“So naturally that lead to you telling the barber to forego the scissors and bring out the buzz clippers,” Lydia glanced at Stiles with faint amusement because with all of his hair gone, Stiles’s eyes seemed larger, like somehow they could hold more secrets without his locks blocking their lids. Stiles smiled goofily at her, shifting his backpack to his other shoulder as he shrugged,

“Well, yeah. Solidarity and all. Plus, I’d like to think I kind of pull it off, don’t you?” 

Lydia let his words wash over her before she realized what he had done and she suddenly pulled up short. She heard rather than saw Stiles stumble as he realized Lydia had stopped mid-stride. Lydia shook her head, because she wanted to be shocked, but this was Stiles, and of course he did this, of course he, “You shaved your head… so I wouldn’t feel alone in having a terrible haircut?” 

“To be clear, I still don’t think your haircut is terrible and also do not think mine is either.” 

Lydia raised her eyebrows briefly before giving up and smiling at him again, tugging him along so they weren’t late for the bus, refusing to let herself feel anything besides abstract bemusement for the boy willingly letting her drag him forward, “You’re really stupid sometimes, you know that? And I’m still not entirely sure this doesn’t mean you had a 2007 Britney breakdown.”

“That’s why I keep you around, you make sure my IQ remains at an acceptable level and that I don’t break any paparazzi car windows.” 

Lydia coughed out a laugh as they stepped onto the bus, looking back and down at Stiles as he climbed the steps behind her, “My genius can’t perform miracles, Stiles.” 

Lydia almost didn’t hear him mutter, “Not yet,” over the hordes of children conversing amongst themselves. Almost.

\- -- -- -- --

Lydia wasn’t surprised when Stiles pulled out his camera from his backpack again when they stopped at her locker so she could grab her books for first period, “Stiles, I think this is one birthday I could probably live with forgetting, alright?” she sighed as she stuffed her head in her locker, half-heartedly in an attempt to reach for her AP Statistics book, but mostly so she could block her face from the view of Stiles’s camera. 

Stiles sighed and dropped his backpack unceremoniously on the floor as he leant against the locker on her right, “For the love of god, Lyds. You look great. Plus, this day marks your entrance into the world of teenagers. It’s momentous. It’s grand. It deserves recognition.” Lydia could practically hear Stiles hammer in his points with wild and wide-reaching gesticulations and her assumptions were proven correct when she heard a few students grumble unhappily, some mumbling, “Move it,” as they passed the two in the hall. 

“Your ridiculousness deserves recognition.” Lydia muttered, stepping away from her locker so she could shut it and move towards her first class of the day. Stiles used this moment as an opportunity to snap a picture of her. 

She looked at him with narrowed eyes and huffed, going to flip her hair before realizing its absence and instead adjusting her hat for the tenth time this morning, “You have no shame.” 

Stiles only winked in response as he followed her, “You’re going to regret mercilessly hurling these cruel words at me as soon as I give you your birthday present.” 

But Lydia wasn’t paying attention to him anymore, and she waved her hand in his general direction as though she could dispel his words from the air with a simple flick of her wrist, “Um ow? What the hell, Lydia?” she distantly heard Stiles gripe, realizing belatedly she must have accidentally whacked him in her attempt to shut him up, but she didn’t have the time to apologize to him, nor did she feel the need to, she was sure he would deserve that smack at some point in the future, because the “Six Chicks” were walking down the hall at that moment.

The “Six Chicks” were walking down the middle of the hall, heads tilted upwards, giving no recognition nor regard to the people in their way, strutting with the expectation that people would know to move. Lydia’s eyes narrowed as she strode to the center of the hall, standing directly in their pathway with no intention of moving.

“This again?” She heard Stiles sigh impatiently as he shuffled to stand beside her, crossing his arms in frustration, looking at the ‘Six Chicks’ with distaste written in bold letters across his face.

Lydia didn’t have the time or energy to argue with him about why this was important to her again, so she stayed silent, pursing her lips and silently thinking of three different conversation starters before the gaggle of girls stopped abruptly in front of her. Lydia titled her head up to meet Ashley’s eyes, staring unashamedly into them as she confidently and casually asked, “What’s up?” She could literally feel Stiles roll his eyes so severely she wondered if they may get permanently stuck into the back of his head.

“Lydia.” Ashely acknowledged, before minutely turning her head to look Stiles up and down before snorting, “Nice haircut, Football Head.” 

Lydia briefly flitted her eyes up to Stiles just to see he hadn’t moved an inch, his arms still crossed over the batman logo on his graphic t-shirt, his face looking at Ashley unamused before looking away in disinterest. 

Lydia turned her attention back to Ashley as she and her lackeys giggled amongst themselves, “I absolutely adore that shirt, Ashley. Where’d you get it?” She raised her voice in faux interest, smiling widely and effectively turning their attention away from Stiles. Ashley looked down, preening herself with Lydia’s praises.

Stiles coughed into his elbow and looked over at Lydia, shaking his head minutely in something that, had Lydia cared enough to analyze, would have been decoded as disappointment, before telling her he would meet her outside. Ashley looked over at Stiles before Lydia could shoo him away, “Does it look like Lydia needs a play-by-play, Bruce Banner?” 

Stiles looked at Ashley, utter disgust dripping from his pores, “Bruce Banner is the hulk. And he’s not even in the DC Univer- You know what? This is not worth my time.” And he shoved his way past the remaining Six Chicks, shaking his head in abject disappointment with society as he made his way to the double doors at the end of the hall.

When Lydia focused her attention back on the Six Chicks, Ashley was covering her mouth with her hands and cackling, “What a freak.” 

Lydia cleared her throat, they had all wasted enough time on Stiles and she had more important matters to accomplish during this conversation with Ashley. Ashley looked back at Lydia contemplatively before stepping towards her, “Anyways, I wanted to discuss something real quick with you, Lydia so I’m glad you caught me.” She looked back at her lackeys as she drew Lydia to the other side of the hall, near the lockers.

“We all really wanted to go to your party tonight,” Ashley’s tone dripped with false sincerity as she pointed towards the girls waiting patiently for their leader to return. Lydia waited patiently for Ashley to get to the point, “And so did Jackson,” 

At this, Lydia felt her heart skip a beat. Jackson, captain of the Junior Lacrosse League, an apparent shoe-in for First Line next year at the high school, at the top of the social chain. 

Absolutely, stunningly gorgeous. 

The guy Lydia had had her sights set on the entire year. 

Ashley smiled slowly, knowing she had Lydia’s full attention, “But, Mr. Harris assigned this huge lab report for tomorrow and we haven’t done any of it, so I don’t think we can make it… And Jackson’s team is working with us on it, so I guess he won’t make it either.” 

Lydia rolled her eyes inwardly, bored with how tedious and painfully obvious these passive aggressive games were, cautiously reminding herself that when she finally made it to the top, she could make these dances more strategic, more mentally challenging for those who wished to climb the social ladder. 

Instead of allowing herself to show her impatience though, Lydia smiled and sweetly responded, “I could write the report for you, of course.” 

Ashley’s eyes widened, but just barely, showing just a hint of her faux shock at Lydia’s offer, “You would do that for us?” 

“Any time.” Lydia smiled again, watching Ashley turn around to return to her mindless gang of worker bees.

“We’ll see you at 6:30, then!” And Ashley waved, just her fingers twirling in the air as though it would be too much effort to move her wrist as well.

Lydia breathed deeply in satisfaction, feeling herself flood with deep-seeded envy as the Six Chicks strode down the hallway, parting the mass of children like Moses and the Red Sea. Lydia was only comforted with the reminder that, soon, if she had her way, and she often did, she wouldn’t just be their prophet; she would be their god.

\- -- -- -- --

The bus ride back home had been quiet, Stiles stewing in what Lydia assumed to be anger. This argument was so tired though that Lydia couldn’t bring herself to feel concerned. She knew Stiles would explode soon anyways and she let herself enjoy the silence while she could, staring out at the passing scenery with a quiet sort of contentment.

Sure enough, as Lydia and Stiles walked down the sidewalk towards their street, Stiles blurted out, “I don’t know why you invited those clones to your birthday party. If I’m being honest with myself, I don’t know why you want anything to do with them in the first place. It’s like this sick, masochistic obsession you have.” 

Lydia stopped walking and stared at Stiles who continued to walk down the sidewalk, waiting for him to turn around to face her before letting herself roll her eyes at him. “Stiles, I can’t be a Six Chick if I don’t converse with them or invite them to parties.” 

Stiles shook his head in angered bewilderment, eyes narrowed as he absentmindedly tried to run his hands through his non-existent hair, “You can’t be a ‘six-chick,’ Lyds. There’s six of them, that’s their whole shtick.” He shakes his head at her before looking down at the sidewalk, his lips pulling downward briefly. He looks up again with a teasing smile on his face, “I thought you were supposed to be good at math or something.”

Lydia shoves him playfully and his arms flail as he tries to catch his balance, “You know that’s not the point,” and she looks at him pointedly.

“I’m still not sure I understand the point.” He muttered down at his shoes, looking up at her imploringly, “You’re perfect, Lydia. You’re the smartest person I know.”

“Sometimes, it’s not enough to just be smart, Stiles. I don’t know why it’s so important to you that we have this argument over and over again, but I’m getting a little tired of feeling like I’m Bill Murray, alright?”

Stiles chuckled despite his clear attempts to remain serious, “See? This is what I don’t get. You’re you, Lydia. You’re funny and smart and witty and you know way too much about Bill Murray movies. Why would you want to dilute that by making yourself into some kind of clone?”

“Because I don’t want to be original, Stiles. I want to be popular. You don’t go anywhere in life without a little bit of sacrifice. The means will justify the ends, I’m sure of it.”

“You’re not going to win this with Machiavelli as the foundation of your rationale.”

Lydia rolled her eyes, she was bored with this line of conversation and if the past was any indication, then this discussion would never end until one of them relented. She supposed it was her turn this time, “My aspirations aren’t to be a worker bee. I’m going to be the Queen,” and she winked as she turned to strut towards her front door, hearing Stiles shout a moment later, “That’s what terrifies me the most!”

Lydia shook her head and chuckled, opening the door to her house, screaming, “Arivaderici, Stiles,” waiting by the front door until she heard a muffled, “Au revoir!” 

Smiling to herself, she rushed up the stairs to her room.

\- -- -- -- --

The smile was short lived. 

Lydia stared at her closet, arms crossed and lip caught between her teeth in despair, a heap of clothes piled on her bed, some tossed directly onto the floor in a fit of frustration and disgust. Lydia huffed and turned to look at the Vogue magazine perched on her vanity, her fingers caressing its smooth pages, admiring the women frozen in a moment of perfection. Lydia glanced up at her vanity mirror and took in her own reflection, twirling a piece of her shorn hair and leaning in to purse her glossed lips. 

Abruptly, she slammed both of her hands onto her vanity, disturbing the makeup and polish resting on its surface, dropping her head down to her chest to look at the magazine again, then back up to her reflection, then back to the magazine. The woman’s angles were perfect. Her cheekbones cutting. Her lips plump. Her hair long and lustrous. Lydia looked back up to her reflection once more, taking a critical look, frowning at the roundness of her own face. 

Before Lydia could engage in further constructive criticism about her appearance, her parent’s shouting, bitter voices echoing throughout the house interrupted her train of thought. Lydia gritted her teeth and shifted to turn her music up. Closing her eyes and breathing deeply she walked back to her vanity and stared into the pages of Vogue once more, this time not out of innocent interest, but a desperate desire to escape. If her life couldn’t be perfect, she could at least pretend it was and lose herself in fantasies of being, Lydia looked down at the title of the article, ‘Thirty, Flirty, and Thriving.’ 

People were shallow, Lydia mused. Not many people questioned what was underneath a pretty package, they simply admired it. No one questioned whether these women’s lives were anything but perfect, because, why would they? They looked perfect. Their beauty was their armor. Nothing could hurt them. They were in control of their lives. 

And as a side, but equally pressing note, thirty-year-olds certainly didn’t live at home with their parents. 

Sometimes Lydia wished they would just divorce already. 

She let herself stare into the depths of the pictures for a few more minutes before she heard her mother walking up the stairs to her room, waiting until she knocked on her door to shout out a quick, “Come in!” and getting up again to stare at her closet with fresh eyes. 

She felt her mother come up and stand behind her, her hand resting on her bare back, “Lydia… Is that a padded bra?” Lydia looked back at her mother, raising her eyebrows in question, “Lydia… Is that my padded bra?” Her mother asked again, her eyes widening in surprise. Lydia shrugged and returned her attention to her wardrobe, “Maybe,” absentmindedly pulling off a dress she knew one of her new hats would match.

“Why are you wearing my padded bra, Lydia?” 

“These dresses were not designed for my lack of cleavage, mother. This at least gives the impression that I have something.” Lydia huffed, holding the dress up to her body and fully turning towards her mother, “What do you think?” 

Lydia’s mother looked at her, skating her eyes up and down Lydia’s half naked figure before sighing and turning to sit on her bed, patting the space next to her and motioning for Lydia to join her, “I think that you are thirteen years old today, not twenty-three.” 

Lydia rolled her eyes and popped up from her bed and out from underneath her mother’s hand and moved back to her closet, picking out two more dresses, “There are plenty of thirteen-year-olds that have cleavage. In fact, I would wager that some would classify me as a ‘late bloomer’ at this point in my life. This padded bra does nothing but satisfy societal expectations about my appearance.” 

“So you’re wearing my bra so you can fit in.” Her mother’s tone was dry, faintly amused, as Lydia heard her bed’s springs protest her mother moving from the bed and toward Lydia’s bedroom door. 

“In layman’s terms, I guess.” Lydia shrugged, wiggling into dress number one.

“I always thought you were more of a trendsetter.” Her mother mused as she backed up to leave Lydia’s room, Lydia humming in response and waiting to hear the door shut behind her mother to murmur, “You have to fit in before you can set trends.” 

\- -- -- -- --

Lydia had only changed twice by the time she moved to her basement to make sure things were all set for the party. Her mother had put a snack and drink table in the corner and they had cleared the couch and TV for dancing. Lydia turned in a circle, surveying the area with a critical eye and once deeming everything acceptable, moved to the stereo to pick out the music. N/Sync played softly in the background as she flipped through her collection of music, deciding to put the CDs down only when ‘Bye Bye Bye’ began. Lydia prided herself on her self control, but it could only stretch so far and her body was compelled to dance by the siren of Justin Timberlake and co.

Had Lydia not been so immersed in the song, she may have heard Stiles stumble down the stairs. Instead, she was forced to turn around, out of breath and slightly red in the face at the finish of the song to find Stiles smiling widely, slowly clapping for her. 

“I know that Fields Medal by thirty is the current plan, and I’m here for it and will support you no matter what, but I truly believe that back-up dancer for Justin Timberlake should be Plan B. You know, just in case?” 

“I hate you.” Lydia huffed, turning around to lower the volume of N’Sync and resume her search for music for the party.

Stiles only laughed in response, making his way to Lydia who was still standing by the stereo and flipping through CDs. She felt his hand on the middle of her back as he gently placed his chin on her shoulder, “What are you doing?” 

“Trying to find music that is upbeat, not too loud, but loud enough to encourage dancing.” Lydia turned her head just slightly so that their noses grazed each other and she thought she heard Stiles’s breath catch.

“Well, can you take a brief recess? I want to give you one of your presents.” 

Lydia smiled and heaved a dramatic sigh before stepping forward and turning to fully face Stiles, “I suppose I can manage a brief recess.” 

Stiles lead them over to the middle of the room and Lydia sat herself down on the floor while Stiles picked up a cardboard box with a giant ribbon haphazardly stuck onto the top that he had deposited by her stairs so he could applaud her impressive dance moves. Lydia’s eyes followed Stiles as he carefully brought the box over and gently set it down in front of her.

“Remember how you always wanted a Barbie Dream House? And when your parents bought one for you,” 

“I was angry because it didn’t have a room for her laboratory. Or a third closet.” Lydia finished his sentence, smiling and crinkling her eyebrows in confusion as she looked to the box sitting in front of her and then to Stiles and then back to the box, trying to figure out what he had gotten for her before he could reveal it. Lydia had always hated surprises. 

“Exactly. Well, I decided to make you your own Dream House. A Lydia Dream House, if you will.” Stiles explained as he lifted the top of the box to reveal a light pink house with a white roof and a chimney. Lydia leaned forward on her knees in astonishment as she looked to see the inside of the dream home. Stiles had taken great care with each of the details that she had rattled off in a burst of rage following her realization that the Barbie Dream House was nothing more than a sham. 

“I don’t remember telling you that I wanted a fireplace?” Lydia whispered, reaching out her hand to caress the crafted fireplace that Stiles had constructed to look like red brick.

“Well, I figured that you’ll either end up in Boston because you’ll realize for some god forsaken reason that you love the cold and snow when you go to MIT, in which case your home would definitely have a fireplace or you won’t give a shit about the fact that California’s sun is basically its own fireplace and you’ll design your house here to have a fireplace anyways.” 

Lydia turned to face Stiles, ripping her attention away from her Dream Home briefly to smile at him, his cheeks ruddy with embarrassment as he cleared his throat and itched the back of his neck. When Stiles finally looked up from the floor, he smirked, “Plus, you’re not exactly subtle, Lyds. You’ve always got that ‘Crackling Fireplace’ video on when you do your homework.”

Lydia rolled her eyes and huffed out a laugh, “I always thought you were too distracted by your latest scheme to see how off-topic you could make your assignments and still get an A based off of the astounding depth of your research.” 

“I’m batting for 100 so far,” Stiles puffed out his chest proudly before winking at Lydia, “And I’ve been known to multitask.” 

Lydia shook her head, turning again to the Dream House, carefully running her hands throughout each of the rooms, “What am I making in the laboratory?” Lydia picked up the cut-out of herself that Stiles had placed in the laboratory, bringing it closer to her so she could scrutinize whatever was in the beaker her cut out was holding.

“A Molotov cocktail. You’re going to incinerate the last standing Blockbuster.” 

“It truly is a travesty that the last remaining Blockbuster is sitting right here in our own home town. It’s as if Beacon Hills has no shame.” 

“And they don’t even have quality, cinematic masterpieces to justify its presence.”

“For the last time, Star Wars is not a cinematic masterpiece. It is rife with scientific inaccuracies. And predictable plot lines.” 

At this comment Stiles shifted his entire body away from the Dream House sitting between he and Lydia, eye twitching and jaw clenching in his tell-tale sign of disbelief, but surprisingly instead of spouting off his prepared list of arguments about why Lydia’s assertions are “completely off base and not even remotely objective,” Stiles closed his eyes, sighed, and gently placed his hands on his knees, “Because it is your birthday, I am going to let that totally uncalled for comment go and give you the best part about this gift.” 

“The Dream House itself is not the best part?” Lydia squinted her eyes in confusion, looking around Stiles to see if she had missed a second part to this gift.

Stiles opened his eyes again and grinned at Lydia before reaching into his pockets and pulling out a packet of what Lydia deduced to be sparkles. Stiles held it out so Lydia could inspect the package more carefully, realizing she was mostly correct as she read, “Wishing Dust,” from the packet aloud, eyebrows raising in speculation and mild amusement. 

“Okay, put aside all of your logic and reason for about thirty seconds for me. Please?” Stiles implored, his eyes boring into hers until she relented with a smile and a wave of her hand, making a show of closing her eyes and transforming into a person that believed in things like ‘Wishing Dust,’ even though both she and Stiles knew that deep down she didn’t have to try all that hard to be that kind of person.

“It says that this wishing dust knows what’s in your heart of hearts. It’ll make all your dreams come true.” Stiles sprinkled it carefully on the home as Lydia watched the sparkles gently land against the white roof of her home with rapt attention, knowing what she would wish for if she actually believed in fantasy, if she didn’t let herself be grounded by the reality of math and science.

Lydia hadn’t realized she had closed her eyes until she opened them again to find Stiles staring softly at her with a small, content smile on his face. Lydia thought for the second time today how much larger his eyes seemed with his hair buzzed so close to his head. 

She may never win a staring contest again at this rate. 

Lydia’s thoughts scattered as quickly as they were assembled though as her mother called down that her friends were waiting at the door. Lydia shook her head quickly, trying to collect herself as she stood up and wiped the palms of her hands against her skirt of her dress, smoothing out any wrinkles. 

“Oh god, okay, okay,” Lydia twirled in a frantic circle as she looked down again at Stiles still sitting on the floor, looking up at her in amusement and mild concern. The Dream House sat innocently beside him, the wishing dust glittering in the sun motes drifting in through the basement’s topmost window, “Okay, I’m just going to put this in the closet so no one hurts it,” Lydia explained as she gently picked up the home and sped over to the closet, Stiles opening the door for her before she could try to open it herself. 

“You okay?” Stiles had placed his hands on Lydia’s shoulders once she had managed to finagle the Dream House onto the top shelf of the closet, satisfied that it wouldn’t come tumbling down any time soon. 

Lydia took a deep breath, squaring her shoulders and constructing her face into a mask of flippancy, “Of course, why wouldn’t I be?” 

Stiles narrowed his eyes in suspicion before shaking his head and lightly knocking her hat slightly askew, “You better go greet your guests and make your best bid for the seventh Sixth Chick.” 

“That is not- I’m not- I don’t- I don’t have time for this!” Lydia stumbled over her words before turning towards the stairs, her mind already distracted with the amount of humiliation her mother could have already buried her under. She stopped at the top of the stairs to see Stiles behind her, eyebrows furrowed and hands stuffed in the pocket of his jeans, “I’ll see you tomorrow?” 

Stiles pulled his mouth down into a half smile, “Yeah, of course. I think Scott was going to come over tonight with some new video games anyways. I think he’s hoping there will be one game where I won’t completely annihilate him.”

Lydia snorted and then hopped up the rest of the stairs, taking a moment to watch Stiles walk in the opposite direction towards her front door, “Arivaderici,” 

She only barely heard Stiles’ muted, “Au revoire.” 

\- -- -- -- --

When Lydia finally made it into her own dining room, she had managed to wrestle her heartbeat into a relatively normal rhythm and had wiped all the sweat accumulating on her palms onto her dress. Of course, when she saw Jackson leaning against one of her walls all of that effort was worth jack shit. Lydia swallowed hard before crafting her winning smile and sauntering into the huddle that had formed near the dining room table, Ashley standing in the middle. 

“Hello ladies,” Lydia stood toe to toe with Ashley, looking her up and down before smiling wider, “Party is downstairs,” Lydia turned on her heel and strolled towards the basement stairs before looking over her shoulders and lowering her lashes at Jackson, “You too, boys.” 

For her part, Lydia was impressed that Ashley had fulfilled her part of the bargain and brought Jackson and his gaggle of boys. When everyone had finally gathered into the basement and Lydia had hurriedly selected a CD from one of the many she had laid out in careful contemplation before her brief dalliance as an N/Sync backup dancer, Ashley pointedly cleared her throat, “I hate to already put a damper on this party,” Ashley’s eyes wandered around the decorated basement, “But we really need that report.” At this declaration, Ashley’s hand shot out in expectation. 

“Of course,” Lydia flashed another smile, quietly thinking about that Molotov cocktail Stiles’ cut out of her was holding in her Dream House and how it would feel to throw it at Ashley right about now, before she turned to grab the report from the desk sitting in the corner of the room. All of this would be worth it, Lydia thought, as soon as she had made herself a spot in this elite clique. 

And as soon as she did, she would pulverize Ashley into the ground. 

“Great!” Ashley chirped, stuffing the report into her massive purse, “Now, let’s start this party right with a fun little game.” Ashley smiled wickedly, briefly glancing at the girls behind her. 

Lydia pursed her lips, mostly in an attempt to mask her surprise, unwilling to let Ashley see her confusion, “What kind of game did you have in mind?” 

“Seven minutes in heaven.” Ashley declared it as though it was a proclamation of war. Lydia knew that this moment was a statement and she squared her shoulders confidently, refusing to let herself feel rattled. 

“And I nominate the birthday girl to go first!” 

Lydia quickly and assuredly decided that Ashley had deduced that Lydia had yet to have her first kiss and was using this moment to assert her dominance over Lydia. It was a strategic move and Lydia let herself briefly feel impressed by Ashley’s strategy. It wasn’t until Ashley leaned over and whispered in Lydia’s ear, “I’m only doing this because Jackson asked if he could have a moment alone with you when I mentioned that we were going to your party,” that Lydia realized the implications and possible ramifications of Ashley’s actions. 

Lydia felt her breath catch in her throat as she forced her heart back into her chest from her throat, butterflies quickly swarming her stomach as she quickly shot a glance at Jackson who was smirking at her. Lydia cleared her throat and turned to fully face Ashley, “Right, so how are we going to do this?” 

“Here, put this on,” Ashley handed over her scarf and reached around Lydia to tie it around Lydia’s eyes as a makeshift blindfold before leading her over to the closet. Lydia’s heart felt as though it was going to pound out of her chest as she took a few calming breaths, attempting to convince herself that this seven minutes in heaven could be her key to making a place for herself in this group. 

Ashley guided Lydia into the closet until her back hit the shelf, whispering as she closed the door, “Just as an FYI, Jackson has been known to be a chest man, but you shouldn’t have any issue with that, should you?” Lydia could hear Ashley snickering and she clenched her fists because by the end of this seven minutes in heaven, Lydia would be making sure that Jackson would be known as a ‘Lydia man,’ and Ashley would be swallowing her words. 

Lydia listened to the closet door close and used the time before Jackson came in to take deep, calming breaths, thinking back on all of the romantic movies she had studied so she could prepare herself for the upcoming kiss. She had been so focused on planning what her first move should be, if she should even be the one that makes the first move, that when she heard the door finally open, she jumped in shock. 

Lydia waited to feel Jackson’s hands on her, or even speak, but instead the air just felt weighted with something heavier than a game of seven minutes in heaven should ever be. Lydia forced herself to swallow and tried to lift the nerves off her chest with a bit of flirtation, “I hope you standing around here isn’t going to count as part of my seven minutes, otherwise I’ll have to ask for a refund.” 

Jackson remained silent. Obviously he wasn’t a man of many words, but luckily Lydia didn’t need him to be. 

“Would you at least come a little closer?” Lydia let her hands reach out blindly towards what she believed to be Jackson, hoping he would at the very least meet her halfway. She felt hands meet hers and his minty breath against her nose. She wondered if he had put a mint in before coming into the closet. One of his hands moved from hers and Lydia felt it lightly caress her face, so carefully she could feel small tremors in his hands. Lydia moved her own hands to his face, shocked at how smooth the skin around what she blindly believed to be his chin was. 

Lydia felt goosebumps race against her skin. This was it. 

Lydia moved her face closer to his face, whispering as she felt their noses touch, “Jackson,” 

Everything leading up to this moment, the one hand moving to her cheek while the other remained holding her hand, the labored breathing, appeared to be moving slower, as though someone had poured molasses over this moment in time.

And then it wasn’t. 

The hands so delicately resting on her face jerked away and the warm body in front of her was suddenly missing, “Jackson?” 

“Stiles?” Lydia shrieked as she ripped off the blindfold to find Stiles Stilinski scrambling up from his knees in utter shock and what looked to be crushing disappointment, “What the hell, Stiles? Where the hell is Jackson? What did you do?” Lydia hurled question after question, feeling every hope she had held so closely to her chest come crashing down around her. 

“What are you talking about? Everyone left! I didn’t do anything, I forgot my backpack at your place and when I came back to get it everyone was leaving and they told me you were waiting for me in the closet!” Stiles was standing his back against the door of the closet, his eyes still wide with shock as he raced to get the words out, putting his hands up in front of him as a gesture of innocence. 

Lydia could see nothing but red. Everything was red. She had never felt more enraged in her entire thirteen years of existence. The anger built and built until she had no space left in her body to hold it, and so she let it come pouring out of her, aimed at the next living body in her eye line. 

Stiles Stilinski.

“This is all your fault. You did this. You have never liked them and you have never accepted that I want to be their friend. And not because they’re popular or because their complete air heads, which may have been valid arguments once upon a time. No, you don’t want me to be their friend because I am your only friend and you cannot stand if you have to share me. Or god forbid if I realize that there are better people out there for me than you. Maybe you just didn’t want me to finally realize that this whole time we have been nothing but friends of convenience. That you’re just the boy next door whose mother used to be best friends with mine.” 

She could feel her chest heaving as she fired each sentence like an automatic rifle right into his chest. She couldn’t breathe. She watched his face turn from confusion to shock to utter pain, “Lydia, I didn’t do anything. I swear. All I did was come back for my backpack. I’m sorry they left. I really am.” 

Lydia stepped towards him and opened the door to the closet, shoving him backwards, only vaguely aware of his arms flailing to catch his balance, “Get away from me,” and slammed the door closed again, locking it before stumbling backwards into the shelf at the back of the closet. 

“Lydia, wait just let me talk to you! Unlock the door, Lydia, come on!” Stiles knocked insistently on the closet door, pleading with Lydia to open the door. Lydia could feel the frustrated tears pool up at the corner of her eyes. Her overconfidence that she had been in control of the game had led her to fly too close to the sun. She bashed her body against the shelves of the closet, squeezing her eyes shut and grasping at the horribly short hair on her head, reaching for the blindfold hanging loosely around her neck and pulling it up towards her eyes again. Maybe if she couldn’t see what a disaster this night had been, she could pretend it had never happened. 

Lydia closed her eyes and thought about the women pictured in the magazines she poured over while she lazed in the tub, their entire existence fabricated by the hands of professional designers and glossed over with Photoshop. Lydia wanted to construct her own existence. Every cell. Every atom. And in that moment, all Lydia could think of were all of the things she had ever wanted: independence, freedom, success, popularity, control. 

Lydia slammed her body against the shelf of the closet in tandem with Stiles’ pleas for her to open the door, a beat to the own sad song of Stiles’ calls muffled behind the locked door. 

And in that moment, the only thing Lydia could see behind her closed eyelids was the caption underneath one of the perfect women in the magazine this afternoon, ‘Thirty, Flirty, and Thriving.’

Independence, freedom, success, popularity, control.

“Lydia please open the door, I’m actually begging you now!” 

Thirty, Flirty, and Thriving.


	2. Doors

Lydia didn’t remember falling asleep, but she remembered waking up. She felt her awareness of the outside world begin to reach her like spindly branches of a tree as she stretched her body, pointing and flexing her toes beneath her silk, down comforter. She reached her hands up, stretching them above her head while she slowly opened her eyes. 

Unfortunately, opening her eyes didn’t appear to do much as she was met with complete darkness. Lydia’s heart rate spiked with sudden and irrational fears of early-onset blindness until her hands flew to her eyes and felt a silk night mask wrapped around her face.

Lydia slowly removed the eye mask, eyebrows furrowing in confusion. It was one thing to not remember putting on the eye mask if she had done so in a half-conscious state in the middle of the night, but Lydia didn’t think she even owned a sleep mask. However, she did not have long to ruminate on her sudden acquisition of said sleep mask because she soon realized she had bigger issues afoot. For instance, the fact that she had no idea where the hell she was. 

This was not her bedroom. 

She looked down at the sheets covering her body, a beautiful light lavender, that as much as Lydia admired, did not belong to her. Lydia’s eyes slowly gazed around the room as her grip around her night mask tightened and she tried to take calming breaths. 

Nothing in this room belonged to her. 

In a dazed panic, Lydia slipped out from under her sheets, immediately feeling goosebumps scatter across her arms and legs as the draft from the air conditioning met her bare skin. Lydia looked down in confusion, arms crossed across her chest to try to fight off the cold and impending panic to find that she had nothing on save a short pink silk nightie with black lace trimmings. 

These weren’t her pajamas. 

Lydia reached for the bedroom door and opened it, peering out into what appeared to be a short hallway. Lightly tip toeing out into the open space, Lydia tried to think rationally about the situation around the buzzing panic in her head. 

This was just a dream. Lydia had had realistic dreams before, albeit not this realistic, but maybe it only felt this real because she was still in it. She took a deep breath as she continued her short walk into what looked to be a tastefully decorated living room. 

As Lydia stared at the leather couch and armchair she felt a strange sense of familiarity, as though she had seen this living room before. Lydia forced herself to wander further into the living room, letting her toes sink into the pure white, plush carpet, absently grazing her fingers across one of the side tables and briefly wondered if one’s aptitude for lucid dreaming increased with age and decided that this would be the first thing she researched when she finally woke up. 

“This is just a dream. A very very strange dream.” Lydia muttered to herself, jerking in surprise when her fingers met a pile of envelopes and papers on the side table. She looked down in growing curiosity and picked up one of the envelopes, seeing her own name as the addressee in typed script. Lydia brought the envelope closer to her face and forced herself to read what appeared to be an electric bill, her heart rate spiking as she grabbed another envelope off the table and saw that this too, was addressed to her. 

Lydia didn’t remember dropping the envelopes, she didn’t remember backing up until her back hit a jut in the wall, she didn’t remember turning around in blind panic. 

What she did remember was meeting a mirror in her direct eye line and seeing a woman staring back at her, her chest heaving in a short, pink silk nightie with black lace trim, green eyes wide with unbridled panic, and long red hair drifting down across her breasts. 

And in her frazzled state of blind panic, only two thoughts were clear and resounding in Lydia’s mind: That hair, while much longer than Lydia had had about twelve hours ago, was definitely hers. Those breasts were not. 

Lydia suddenly couldn’t remember how to make her lungs take deep breaths as her eyes remained frozen on the figure staring back at her in the mirror. Her hands subconsciously moved to her breasts, unsure of what was more disconcerting, the fact that the figure in front of her mirrored her actions or that the breasts underneath her hands felt startlingly real. 

When Lydia finally tore her eyes away from the mirror, she whipped her head back to the envelopes laying haphazardly on the floor, stumbling towards them again, hands still gripping the breasts sitting perkily on her chest as though they were a lifeline. Lydia fell to her knees in front of the envelopes and looked down and read the words on the envelopes again. Nausea now mixed in with panic, as she suddenly and desperately wished she hadn’t spent those eight hours a couple months ago researching the science of sleep and dreams with Stiles. 

Maybe if she hadn’t she could have remained blissfully ignorant in the belief that she was still dreaming and would wake up any second in her own room, in her parent’s house, everything the way it was twelve hours ago. But Lydia bit her lip and read the words on the envelopes, “I’m not dreaming.” 

The panic she had so expertly kept at bay tore through the dam and filled every pore of Lydia’s body. She was distantly aware of her breaths now coming out in short bursts and she now clutched her chest for a wholly different reason. Somewhere deep in the recesses of her mind, she heard her own voice speaking and she could see the piles of research on panic attacks that she had gathered at the library and memorized only five years ago. 

Try to take deep breaths, count to ten, and then to twenty if you still find it hard to breathe. Ground yourself to the present. 

Whenever the “present” was at this point. 

She focused on the feeling of her knees nestled into the plush carpet, the silk covering her chest, she counted to twenty-five. She could feel her chest loosening, forcing her fingers to relax and slowly surrender their death grip on her silk nightie. 

Lydia took one last deep breath and looked around the apartment again with new eyes. The apartment was obviously hers and she apparently still lived in California, if the mail on the table was any indication. She slowly got up from her knees and looked for any more clues as to what point in time she had traveled to. Because this was obviously the future. And Lydia was obviously a time traveler. 

Lydia paused in her investigation of the living room at that last thought and shook her head, whispering fiercely, “You’re crazy. This is crazy. You are not a time traveler. You have let yourself watch way too many sci fi movies.” 

Before Lydia could allow herself to continue searching the apartment for any more clues though, she heard someone shout something unintelligible from the bathroom, the words muffled from the shower running. Someone else was in this apartment. 

The only question now was whether someone else was supposed to be in this apartment. Thirteen-year-old Lydia had no idea what Future Lydia had been doing with her time. She could have a roommate, she supposed. But then she thought back to the small hallway she had ventured down and the lack of additional bedrooms besides her own. 

So, no roommate. 

Lydia tiptoed towards the bathroom, grabbing a lamp on her way, gritting her teeth in anticipation and trying to remember the best way to take down an intruder. She briefly looked down at the lamp clenched between her hands like a baseball bat and thought what a shame it was that it would have blood on it. It really was a beautiful lamp. 

Lydia stood outside of the bathroom door, waiting as she listened to the shower turn off and the person step out of the shower. The door opened and Lydia’s heart hammered in her chest, adrenaline pumping through her body and preparing itself to fight whoever it was that was coming out of her bathroom. 

“Hey cupcake, you’re up late, I thought you were going to join me in the shower.” The man in front of her had only a towel wrapped around his waist and his hair was still dripping water all over her hardwood floors. Lydia was suddenly disgusted with Future Lydia’s choices. 

Lydia could only force out, “You’re naked. And wet,” as she stared at the man in front of her who she could only just barely deduce around the shock that Future Lydia was seeing regularly enough to have showers with. 

“Well, not yet.” The man winked and let the towel drop in a heap around his feet. The wet towel slopping to the floor. His dick out for the world and God to see. 

Lydia yelped. She didn’t remember choosing to throw the lamp, although luckily the man had quick enough reflexes to catch it before it crashed to the now wet floor. Lydia allowed a small part of her to be relieved as she whipped around towards the front door, grabbing a coat and a purse she found lying on the table near the entry way, remembering shoes at the last second and blindly grabbing whatever was nearest to the door she was now ten feet out of. 

She really did love that lamp. 

As soon as Lydia found herself on the street outside of her apartment, she realized she had only a vague idea of where she was and absolutely no idea of what year it was. She let herself look around for a newspaper stand or something that would have the day’s date on it, but her search only lasted about five seconds before she heard a woman shouting her name. 

“Hey Lydia, come on! We’re going to be late! I told you if you went out last night you wouldn’t be able to wake up in time.” 

Lydia looked towards the person calling her name, finding a tall statuesque blonde standing outside of a running car, looking at Lydia with raised eyebrows and an impatient tug of her lips, “Um, I- Sorry?” Lydia slowly approached the woman, trying to reason with herself that the alternative to not getting in the car with her was to wander the streets of a strange neighborhood with only, Lydia looked down in horror, her pink silk nightie underneath a beige trench coat.

“If you could walk any slower I swear to god you would be going backwards. Could we please get moving?” The woman huffed, tapping her heels on the pavement and gesturing Lydia forward, opening the passenger door of the car for her, “You are so lucky I decided to swing by to see if you had left yet.” 

Lydia’s mind raced as she lowered herself into the car, trying to think of the easiest way to find out who this woman was, where they were going, and what today’s date was, “Do you have a newspaper?” 

The woman glanced to Lydia from the driver’s seat as she pulled the car out onto the road, “A newspaper? What is this, 1985? If you need to catch up on world events, check your phone.” 

Warring emotions of infuriation, confusion, and nervousness flooded Lydia’s chest. Infuriation with this strange woman and her sardonic and unhelpful answers. Confusion as to how her phone would have the ability to report world events. Nervousness because Lydia didn’t even know where this phone would be considering she had no memory of anything following her thirteenth birthday. 

Instead of voicing any of this though, Lydia grit her teeth and decided to focus on her irritation, spitting out, “A simple no would have been efficient.” 

“God, you’re grumpy in the morning.” The woman glanced over at Lydia again, eyes skating over Lydia’s outfit and eyebrows raising in surprise and muted amusement, “As your best friend, I have to say, I’m surprised with the vintage choice of dress here.” 

Lydia felt something shock her system as she turned towards the woman, “Are you really my best friend?” 

“Oh god, you’re pregnant.” The woman drawled in disgust, Lydia felt her eyes widen, “What? No. It’s not that,”

“Oh thank god. You scared me for a second. What happened last night?” The woman looked over at Lydia before returning her attention to the road in front of her, taking a moment to scream at one of the other drivers on the road, swerving around the car in front of them and slamming on the accelerator. 

Lydia gripped the passenger’s seat, trying to take deep breaths and think about the situation rationally. She was a rational human being. There was an explanation to this. One that did not involve Lydia being admitted to a mental institution. Or defying the laws of physics. Or Stiles being right about time travel. 

But while Lydia tried to come up with an answer that didn’t sound like she’d lost her mind; the woman had parked in front of a multi-storied building and was already getting out of the car. 

Apparently there wasn’t time for subtly anymore, “Where are we?” 

The woman had already begun walking towards the building and turned around slowly to look at Lydia with narrowed, suspicious eyes, “How hungover are you?” 

Lydia responded with a withering glare.

“Okay we don’t have time for this. There is no way we can have you go in there and let people know just how hungover you are.” 

“I am not hungover.” Lydia resisted the urge to stomp her foot in frustration. 

“Listen to me,” The woman stepped forward and grasped Lydia’s shoulders tightly, locking her steel grey eyes onto her own, “You are Lydia Martin, acclaimed researcher in mathematics at Stanford University. You are this close to being nominated for the Fields Medal and you are not going to let one, admittedly crazy night out, stand in your way of that, okay?” 

Lydia felt her eyes widen, and the woman sighed, “I need to hear you repeat back to me that you understand this.” she said slowly and condescendingly as her eyes looked at Lydia’s face imploringly. 

Huffing pretentiously and rolling her eyes, Lydia sarcastically spit out an, “I understand.” Because Lydia did understand. And if she was losing her mind, she might as well do so with confidence and poise.

“Good.” The woman turned around without waiting to see if Lydia would follow and walked inside. 

Lydia decided in that moment that she might as well enjoy the ride down the rabbit hole. 

\---  
Walking into the university, Lydia felt her stomach fill with something close to the butterflies that would consume her before the first day of school, each of the insects excitedly fluttering at the nearness of academia. 

The woman led Lydia to an elevator, only for it to open to a lobby that led into a large hallway of offices with a cluster of desks in a glass partitioned room in the middle. 

“Good morning Ms. Martin, Ms. Jackson.” The secretary called out as Lydia and her supposed best friend flitted by. 

“Good morning,” Lydia murmured back, smiling slightly before turning to the woman whose name she still didn’t know and asking quietly, “What’s her name?” 

“Who cares?” The woman dismissed, flicking her hand and continuing to walk until they reached what Lydia could only assume was a conference room, with a long, mahogany table sitting in the middle of the room and people sitting around it, some chatting casually, others engrossed on little tablets. 

Lydia sat down next to the woman and watched as she pulled out a legal pad and pen in preparation of taking notes. Something important was obviously happening and Lydia could not have been any less prepared if she had actively tried. 

“I don’t, I don’t have anything to take notes on.” Lydia muttered nervously, looking around to see others had their legal pads out and pens at the ready as a man walked in, seemingly already in the midst of a sentence, “Sorry, sorry people, I know Saturdays are precious mornings for relaxing and sleeping in, but math and science never sleep.” 

He only received a few reluctant chuckles and then it was back to an imposing silence as the room waited him to continue speaking. 

At least Lydia knew what day it was now. 

“Alright, as you know, despite the number of grumblings we receive from the liberal arts department, we do still have to raise money to keep our program up and running and fund our leading professors in their research,” the man looked pointedly at Lydia, smiling happily before continuing, “because for some of them, research is the only thing keeping them here.”

“Are we here because you needed to tell us how important this Gala is tonight? Because it could have just been sent in an email.” A woman piped up, tapping her pen against the table in annoyance, sending a glare towards Lydia that Lydia added to the growing list of things that didn’t make sense.

“No, we’re here because we’ve been presented with an interesting opportunity that I felt we should discuss in person. Bradley, Aran, and Cooper has asked us if we are interested in being retained as possible experts in future trials. The money associated with being called as expert witnesses, as you all know, isn’t something to complain about and it could bring this university and particularly this department a lot of publicity. The kind of thing we need if we expect more donations. Now, I told them I would have to discuss it with my faculty, but I don’t think this is an opportunity that should be disregarded. Thoughts? Questions? Concerns?” 

The man gazed around the room, everyone’s faces in general, amicable agreement about the opportunity, and finally satisfied with his visual survey, he clapped his hands together and smiled, “Well, shall I call them up and accept their offer?” 

The room uttered out a general affirmative consensus and the man smiled once more before dismissing them, asking Lydia to stay behind while everyone else filed out. 

“Lydia, my bright and shining star. How is the research into the Riemann hypothesis coming along?” The man’s eyes were alight with curiosity and pride as he looked at Lydia, his hands clasped together in front of his chest. 

“Really well. It’s coming along… nicely.” Lydia trailed off, hoping that he would either finish her sentence or give her more clues as to what exactly she did here at the University. 

“Fantastic. Not a surprise. I am going to need to have a full progress report though by next Friday when we convene, so make sure you have that prepared. I’m sure you already do though.” 

“Right.” Lydia swallowed and hoped that if she was indeed trapped in this universe that Future Lydia had left her astounding notes to work off of. 

“All of that aside, I asked to you to stick around because when Bradley, Aran, Cooper asked if we would be interested in being retained as a pool of expert witnesses, they also mentioned that they had a case that they need an expert witness on that’s currently in the process of being prepared for litigation. I recommended you.” 

Lydia stood still in shock. It was one thing to teach herself about the Riemann hypothesis, something she had already begun to read about and research a couple of months ago out of pure boredom and curiosity; it was a whole other to try to learn how to be an expert witness, something she only knew about from watching late night episodes of Law and Order with Stiles and his father.

“Of course, you don’t have to accept if you feel that this would put too much on your plate. Riemann comes first. But I wasn’t exaggerating when I told the staff that serving as expert witnesses would bring about great publicity and donations. If you choose to accept, this could give you the kind of publicity that would give you the final push into the winner’s circle for the Field’s Medal nominees.” 

Field’s Medal.

Field’s Medal.

Field’s Medal.

The words echoed in Lydia’s mind and if she hadn’t already assuredly deduced that she wasn’t dreaming, she would have pinched herself. Or maybe she wouldn’t have. Maybe Lydia didn’t want to wake up from this dream. 

“I’ll have to think about it. But I don’t think I should have an issue dividing my time between my research and this case.” Lydia smiled, hoping she at least appeared to be cool, calm, and collected on the outside. 

“Don’t forget your classes! I know you don’t particularly like the kids or wasting your time on them, but it’s a necessary evil.” The man smiled knowingly, wagging his finger at her teasingly, and Lydia blanched. Because she had completely disregarded the fact that she worked at a university. And the man had called them “faculty.” 

Of course she had signed a contract that required her to teach a minimum number of classes. Lydia wanted to vomit. 

“Right. Of course. I, um, I have to use the restroom, if you’ll excuse me.” Lydia turned around quickly, hurrying out of the room only hearing the man shout after her, “Get me an answer by Friday please, Lydia!” 

Before Lydia could panic about the fact that she didn’t even know where the hell the restroom was, another woman approached her cautiously, not even daring to make eye contact as she murmured a quiet, “I have a few messages for you, Dr. Martin before your next meeting.” 

Lydia looked at her startled, “Oh, okay, um why don’t we go to my office to discuss?” 

The woman, Lydia assumed to be her assistant, looked at her with wide eyes quickly before looking back down at the little notepad she clutched in her hands and nodding, “Of course.” 

“Great! Lead the way!” Lydia gestured her hands to let her assistant go first because she had no idea where the hell she was going. 

Her assistant’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion before walking down the hall to an office with a nametag outside the door labeled “Dr. Martin.” Lydia felt pride flood her bones as she gazed lovingly at the nametag, reaching out to stroke it with reverence before she realized that she did indeed have an audience who probably thought she was having a mental break.

Lydia cleared her throat, squaring her shoulders again and striding into the office, trying to appear professional as she discreetly looked around the office, taking in little notes, trying to compile a list of who Future Lydia was now. 

“Actually, can you do me a favor?” Lydia cut in before her assistant could begin with her messages. 

“Um, a favor? Okay?” 

Lydia turned around and grabbed a blank piece of paper laying on her desk and an errant pen, quickly scribbling down Stiles’ name, address, and phone number before handing it back to her assistant, “Can you try to get in contact with this boy? And let me know what you find out? Please?” 

Her assistant blinked rapidly, wide eyes staring at Lydia in surprise before looking down at the piece of paper Lydia was holding out and taking it from her, “Yes. Do you want the information today?” 

“Yes please. As soon as possible, in fact.” 

She watched as her assistant stared at her again before she took two steps backwards, uttering a quiet, “Of course,” and hurrying out back to her desk. 

Lydia took the time she finally had alone to slowly wander around her office, fingers grazing the walls and the diplomas lining them. MIT and Harvard. Lydia stared until the words began to blur and moved on to her desk, quickly scanning the papers on her desk and opening a binder labeled “Research,” letting herself become immersed in the equations etched across the papers. 

She had no idea how long she sat there, but the knock on her office door and the crick in her neck suggested a bit longer than Lydia had planned as she called the person in. 

Her assistant walked in quickly, her notepad in her hands again, “Did you find something?” Lydia asked excitedly, getting up from her desk to stand in front of the woman. 

“Well, yes. The number you gave me was his parent’s house, so I told them that I worked for Visa and he was in a lot of trouble,” Lydia smiled and nodded appreciatively, motioning for the woman to continue. 

Her assistant stared at Lydia’s smiling face in shock before shaking her head quickly and continuing on, “Right… Um so he lives in Bernal Heights, Downberry Apartments, Apartment 2b.” Lydia felt her heart beat a bit quicker as she squeezed her hands into fists to quell the excitement building in her chest, “Thank you,” she managed as she turned around and grabbed her coat and purse, heading out of her office, towards the elevators. 

“Does this mean you’re leaving for the day?” She heard her assistant shout at her quickly retreating form. 

Lydia didn’t have the time to respond. She had a plan, because if anyone could fill in the gaps she was so obviously missing, it was Stiles, and according to the driver of the cab she just hopped in, she was only twenty minutes away from having all of the answers. 

When she finally reached the apartments though and pulled on the lobby door only to find that it was locked, those positive feelings shifted into frustration.

“Of course. Why wouldn’t the door be locked? That would be too easy.” Lydia whispered to herself, looking around before a black speaker box caught her eye with a list of each of the apartments in the building. 

All of her concern about remaining calm, cool, and collected quickly dissipated when she saw the “Stilinski” nametag next to Apartment 2B’s button and she let herself relentlessly and frantically push down on the button.

“For the love of god. Jesus Scott, you have a fucking key card, I don’t know why you insist on doing this to me.” The words that came crackling out of the box were obviously Stiles’, but Lydia didn’t recognize the deep voice. She didn’t have time to worry about the chances of there being more than one Stilinski in San Francisco though because the lobby door had opened. 

Lydia ripped it open, speed walking up the stairs to the apartment until she was knocking frantically on Stiles’ door.

“I’m going to murder you. I hate you so much. You better have my food, that is your only saving grace now.” Stiles’ voice drifted through the door in between Lydia’s knocks, his sentence fading off as he opened it a quarter, the chain lock he had yet to undo, pulling taut. 

Lydia’s mind went blank. 

He was tall. He was tall and he had grown his hair out again, but this time it wasn’t flopping dangerously into his eyes, but styled up carefully away from his face, as though he took time in the morning with his appearance.

“You’re…not Scott. And you’re not holding curly fries and a coke…” He stated with suspicion as he gave Lydia a once over. Lydia barely heard him though because his voice, his voice was deep and graveled, as though he had spent long hours of the night rambling and ranting about something or the other, scraping over his vocal cords until they were raw. 

Lydia suddenly felt out of breath, “Stiles?”

“Yeah…?” He drew out his answer, confusion written all over his face. His face, his chiseled face, devoid of any of the baby fat that had just coated his cheeks yesterday. 

Except it wasn’t yesterday in this universe. 

And suddenly it was as though someone had doused Lydia with a gallon of cold water because this wasn’t the Stiles she knew, this was a man, and it was with this sobering realization that Lydia blurted out, “You’re tall… You’re different.” As though she could encapsulate everything that had changed about him in two descriptors.

Stiles’s eyebrows furrowed even more, “Thanks?” And Lydia’s heart began to beat quicker, not out of excitement this time, but fear and panic because no matter how much his face had changed, she could still read him like her one of her old, worn favorite books. And when she read the sentences printed on his face, she realized with startling clarity something far more disconcerting than waking up in some alternate future universe.

“You don’t know who I am.” She stated, distantly realizing that her voice sounded as though she’d been punched in the gut, the wind knocked out of her. What kind of sick dimension had she landed in where she was so clearly close to achieving her dreams and didn’t have one of the only people that mattered in her life to share it with? 

Stiles looked at her and his eyes, the eyes Lydia had had countless staring contests with, the eyes that Lydia had had countless unspoken conversations with, the eyes that were once so open and vulnerable, were suddenly guarded. 

It was as though this Future Stiles had learned how to construct walls that even Lydia was intimidated by. 

Lydia tried not to outwardly hyperventilate.

“Still too traumatized from that one haircut to get another, I see.” 

And just like that, relief flooded her bones so quickly Lydia thought she might melt onto the floor in front of this stupid apartment door. With her heart in her throat, she tried unsuccessfully to swallow down tears of relief, instead just breathing out a, “Stiles.” 

Stiles looked at her for a bated moment before shutting his door. Lydia’s mouth would have dropped had she not been clenching her jaw with such effort to try to keep the tears and panic at bay. 

As it was, the slamming of the door echoed in her mind. Flashes of her own hand forcing the closet door shut seared itself across her mind’s eye. The distant sounds of Stiles’ palms slamming on the wooden door matching the beat of her own heart. 

Lydia forced herself to blink away the images and raised her hand to the door about to demand he let her in, but before she could do so, she heard him opening it again, removing the chain so he could open the door fully. 

Lydia lunged into his arms.

“Um. Hey Lydia.” Stiles was stiff in her arms as he was forced forward and Lydia kicked the door shut behind her with one of her legs, “Please, come right in.” 

Lydia let herself take a deep breath and catalogued each and every sensory detail of his person. His deodorant, his laundry detergent, his shampoo, and underneath all of that, something so essentially Stiles. As chaotic and strange as this day had been, Lydia didn’t feel as hopeless anymore. 

Lydia let herself take one more gulp of Stiles before taking a step backwards. 

Stiles remained frozen, staring at Lydia like she was some phantom come to haunt him and Lydia let herself scrape her eyes up and down his figure, starting with the slight stubble budding on his jaw and moving down to his broad shoulders, stopping when she felt marginally calmer.

Smiling and satisfied, she took a deep breath, stepped forward and punched him in the shoulder.

The punch sent him reeling backwards in utter shock, “What the fuck, Lydia?” He gasped, grasping his shoulder in pain and surprise, eyebrows puckered in anger. 

“I cannot believe you let me think for one second you had no idea who I was, you jerk!” 

“I can make a categorized, alphabetical and color-coded list of all the things I can’t believe right now.” Stiles muttered, looking down at his shoulder as he continued his ministrations before looking back up at Lydia in confusion. 

“That was redundant. Your list is categorical if its alphabetical and color-coded.” 

Stiles’ eyes grew wider as he stared at Lydia, his mouth slack and his hand slipping slightly from its post on his wounded shoulder. Lydia watched as Stiles quietly looked down at his fingers and studied them with an intensity that Lydia had only seen Stiles wear a number of times throughout their childhood.

“What are you doing?” Lydia asked, fascinated as Stiles looked up again at her in what appeared to be shock. Lydia could not believe that she was the one somehow transported through time and space and Stiles Stilinski was the one going through the stages of shock. 

“N-nothing. I just- I’m very confused, Lydia. What exactly is happening right now?” 

“Well, right now I’m asking you why you just spent ten seconds counting the fingers on your hand and my follow-up question is about to be why you appear to believe you’re dreaming.” 

“I wasn’t counting my fingers.” Stiles’ voice raised in defensiveness and honestly all of this, Stiles trying to lie and being terrible at it, was soothing to Lydia’s frazzled nerves. At least some things hadn’t changed.

“It’s really weird how you think you can lie to me.” Lydia wondered aloud, looking around his apartment for the first time since stepping foot inside of it. 

“It’s really weird how I think I can- Lydia, you’re standing in my apartment right now. It’s the middle of the day. And you’re standing here in my apartment. And me lying to you about whether I was counting my fingers, which I wasn’t by the way, is what you think is weird?” 

Stiles’ voice had steadily raised in pitch and his hand gesticulations had steadily grown larger as he neared the edge of his rant, seemingly out of breath, staring at Lydia before looking behind him and falling onto his couch. 

Lydia turned to look at him in concern, “Are you okay?” 

“Am I okay? Lydia, what the hell is going on?” Stiles looked up at her from his seated position on the couch in frustration, his fingers interlocking on his knees as though he was consciously not allowing himself to count the digits on his hand again. 

“I have no idea. I woke up this morning and I had no idea where I was or how I got there and when I looked in the mirror, I saw… not what I went to bed looking like. And then this man was in my shower and calling me ‘cupcake’ and I threw a lamp at him and this woman was at my door taking me to work and telling me that I am this,” Lydia moves her fingers to show just how close, “close to winning the Fields Medal. And I don’t know any of them. None. And I look like this. And I have breasts. And those don’t just grow overnight despite the amount of times that I have wished that they did.” 

“You threw a lamp at someone?”

Lydia threw him a withering glare, “That’s what you got from that? Can we please focus on the bigger issues here, Stiles? I went to bed and I was thirteen and wearing my mother’s push up bra. I woke up and I was this.” 

Lydia walked closer towards his Stiles’ still form on the couch and pointed towards her chest as though the physical proof of her sudden development would be enough to make him understand. 

For his part, Stiles immediately diverted his eyes, although Lydia thought she had heard a small whimper rip itself through his throat as she watched his Adam’s apple bobble.

“Stiles, are you listening to me?” 

“I think I’m trying to.” Stiles muttered, eyes still facing away from Lydia and towards one of the walls in his apartment. 

“Well try harder then,” Lydia snapped, “I’m trying to tell you that something is wrong, Stiles.” 

Stiles’ eyes snapped back towards her and he leaned his chest forward, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion and concern, “Did you say that you think you were thirteen when you went to bed last night?” 

“No, I said I know that I was thirteen when I went to bed last night.” 

Stiles’ fingers tapped an indiscriminate rhythm on his knee as he looked off in deep thought. Lydia took a few steps closer to him, “What?” 

“I’m just thinking. Out of all of the things that could have led you to my apartment, this apparent amnesia may make the most sense.”

Lydia raised her eyebrows in response, “What exactly do you remember from last night?” Stiles asked, his eyes meeting hers for the first time since she had showed up at his door. 

Lydia moved to the couch and sat down next to him, sitting close enough so she could feel her thigh resting near his. Stiles’ eyes widened as he watched Lydia scoot closer to him, his eyes flashing down to their legs touching before raising his head again and clearing his throat, waiting for her to say something. 

She let herself look into his eyes for just a moment, realizing that somewhere between Stiles opening the door to her and this very moment, he had taken down whatever had been hiding behind his eyes. For the first time since Lydia had woken up this morning, she felt safe. Because this was Stiles, through and through, and she knew him, every mole and freckle dotting his body, and Stiles would never let anything bad happen to her. 

And he would figure out what had happened. He would make everything right again. 

Lydia didn’t know how long they looked at each other in silence before Stiles eventually ripped his eyes away from hers, looking down to his hands splayed out on his legs and breathing out slowly. 

She couldn’t remember the last time she had won a staring contest. 

“Last night I almost kissed you because I thought you were Jackson and then proceeded to lock myself in my closet after I learned that I’d somehow let myself be duped by Ashley Whitman. And honestly, I don’t know if I’m more upset about the trick itself or the fact that I fell for it.” Lydia whispered the words, almost afraid to hear the words tumble out of her mouth, as though the reality of the situation could hold more gravity if the universe were privy to her speech.

Stiles shifted his body towards Lydia, his mouth turned down in confusion, “The last thing you remember is that god awful birthday party? That’s a really targeted form of amnesia…” 

“Stiles, I swear to god if you don’t start focusing on figuring out what the hell has happened to me I will give you an Indian burn that will rival The Sixth Grade Incident.” 

Stiles swallowed, his eyes widening in fear before decidedly saying, “Okay, listen. I’m not a doctor, but I really think you should see one. I can recommend someone since I’m going to assume you don’t remember your own general practitioner. Although that is definitely something you should do anyways, so it probably shouldn’t be up for discussion.” 

“I don’t want to go to the doctor. I want you to help me remember my life. I need you to help me remember my life.” Lydia looked imploringly at him, letting herself reach the point of begging as she reached forward and gripped one of Stiles’ hands in her own.

Stiles looked down at his hand in hers and shot up so quickly it was as though he had been burned. He drew a hand through his hair letting it travel to the back of his neck where he gripped the skin tightly. He took a deep, unsteady breath and let it out before turning back to Lydia still sitting in silent shock on the couch, “I can’t do that.” 

Lydia understood each of the individual words that Stiles had said, but when he strung them together in the sentence, Lydia couldn’t make any sense of them, “I don’t understand.” 

Stiles breathed out a frustrated growl, taking his hand to his hair again and looking down at his hardwood floors before gritting out, “Lydia, I don’t know you. We haven’t seen each other in thirteen years. I can’t help you remember your life because I don’t know your life. Quite literally. Not like that meme that was so popular a couple years back.” 

“Stiles, you’re my best friend.”

“No, Lydia. I’m not. I haven’t been for a very long time.” His voice was solemn and when Stiles looked at her, his eyes had aged, hardened with knowledge of a reality Lydia did not want to live in. 

It was suddenly squelching in Stiles’ apartment. Sweat began to bead at the back of Lydia’s neck, her palms clammy and Lydia tried to take a deep breath, but there wasn’t any air left in the apartment. There was no air. Stiles was breathing it all and saving none for Lydia. That bastard.

She didn’t realize she had started to hyperventilate until Stiles was kneeling directly in front of her, hands resting lightly on her shoulders, “Lydia?” 

“I can’t- I can’t,” Lydia tried to find enough air to finish the sentence but there was nothing left in her lungs and black spots were starting to cloud her vision as she put her head between her legs. 

Lydia couldn’t believe she was about to pass out in the middle of Stiles Stilinski’s grown-up apartment wearing nothing but a pink silk nightie and a trench coat. What kind of cruel universe was this?

“Okay, okay just wait here, I’ll be right back, okay? Don’t move.” Stiles squeezed her shoulder as Lydia looked up to glare at him. 

“Right, right not likely to move because of the whole- I’m just going to go and get,” Stiles was moving backwards as he spoke to Lydia, trying to modulate his voice to a calming, even tone as he rambled, but he was cut off as he ran into a wall, “Oh god, okay.” 

By the time Lydia looked up again, Stiles had returned with a big pillow and a glass of water. He kneeled in front of her, gently setting the water down, slowly unclenching her fists with his fingers until he could slide the glass of water into her hand. 

Stiles stared at her and Lydia didn’t break eye contact with him, even as she brought the glass to her lips and took a sip of the tepid water. Stiles put out his hand and Lydia gave him the water, Stiles replacing the glass with the pillow, placing it between her arms. Lydia grasped the pillow, pulling it to her chest, letting its substance ground her to the present. 

Stiles hadn’t taken his eyes off of her once. 

The moment shattered with the sound of a door opening and a man’s voice echoing throughout the apartment. It reminded Lydia just how fragile everything in this reality appeared to be. Lydia had gone to bed in a world made of stolid brick and stone and woken up encased in glass. 

“Hey Stiles, man, I think we really need to have a talk on safety again, you didn’t even bother shutting your door all the way this time. Just because you live in a predominately gay neighborhood doesn’t mean that you won’t… have a girl in your apartment?” The man’s sentence trailed off as he wandered into the living room to see Lydia sitting on the couch, clutching a pillow. Greasy bags of fast food dangling from his hands and eyebrows puckered in confusion, mouth pursed with mild concern as his eyes flitted from Stiles to Lydia and back to Stiles. 

Lydia assumed this was Scott as he was indeed carrying the bags of food Stiles presumed she would be holding when he opened his door to her.

“Actually, I had to sign a clause in my renter’s agreement that I wouldn’t have women in my apartment, so if you could just keep this on the down low, that would be great.” Stiles pivoted on his heels and turned around to face Scott. 

Scott’s face remained blank, totally unaffected by Stiles’ sarcasm, “Hey, I, uh, need you to help me with something… I don’t know if they got your order right, will you come in the other room with me and check?” 

Stiles shifted to look at Lydia, still hugging the pillow tight to her chest, before sighing, rolling his eyes, and beginning to walk towards what Lydia assumed to be the kitchen, Scott following quickly behind him. 

Lydia strained her ears, trying to make out any of what was being said, just barely making out Stiles’ voice, “Scott, subtly really isn’t your strong suit, buddy.” 

Unfortunately, Lydia couldn’t hear any of what was said subsequent to that and was forced to move from the couch to the wall closest to where she assumed Stiles and Scott were speaking. However, all of these efforts were proven moot as Scott yelped out a, “Lydia? Lydia Martin?” that ricocheted off the walls, Lydia taking two steps backwards in shock. 

“Sweet Christmas, Scott. Please, let me know if you want a fucking megaphone next time, I don’t want you to strain your vocal cords.” Stiles angrily whispered. 

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m just a little confused, dude. I thought you hadn’t seen her since Christmas, like six years ago? You know, when you stared through that frosted window for like a whole—

“Yes, I get it, Scott. I am aware of just how pathetic I used to be. Thank you so much. Do not feel like re-living that right now.” 

“Did she tell you what she was doing here?” 

“She didn’t really say.” Stiles’ voice was flat and Lydia furrowed her eyebrows, because Stiles did know why she was here. Unless he didn’t believe her. And Lydia realized that as much as she felt she knew Stiles, this Future, Alternate Universe Stiles had no idea who she was. He had no reason to trust her. 

When she looked at Stiles, she saw long afternoons lounging on her bed, reading books, watching movies, making commentary on both to one another. 

She saw Stiles knocking on her bedroom window at midnight and climbing in with a thermos of hot chocolate clutched in one hand and another tucked into his backpack. 

She saw long summers, grabbing Stiles’ hand in her own as they traversed the woods, looking for the pond in a small, hidden alcove between the trees and the feeling of his hands pulling her in the water once they finally found it. 

She saw Stiles staring at her with his eyes so clear and open and swimming with the light filtering in from her bedroom window telling her that she always looked beautiful. 

Standing there in his apartment’s hallway, listening to he and Scott speak in hushed and hurried whispers, she realized she didn’t know what this Stiles saw when he looked at her. Because when Lydia looked at Stiles, she saw her best friend, a person she knew inside and out. 

Lydia took herself back to when he had first opened his door, his eyes giving her a once over, expression totally devoid of recognition. 

Perhaps, when this Stiles looked at her, all he saw was a stranger. And Lydia didn’t want to know what was worse, the fact that this Lydia was a stranger to him, or the possibility that Stiles didn’t want her to be any more than that. 

Before Lydia could sink deeper down into the hole of unthinkable possibilities, Stiles rounded the corner quickly and nearly collided right into her, “Oh shit, sorry Lydia, didn’t realize you’d be standing here… Listening in on our conversation…” Stiles trailed off in suspicion, his eyes narrowed and mouth set in an amused frown. 

“I was not listening in. Why would I care if your fast food was the right order? It’ll clog your arteries just the same.” Lydia huffed and set her shoulders defiantly, boring her eyes directly in Stiles’. Challenging him. 

Scott sidled up next to Stiles, eyes moving from Stiles to Lydia and eventually smiling in mild amusement, “Hey Lydia. Long time no see, I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m-

“Scott McCall. The kid that saves me, I mean, used to save me, from having to kick Stiles’ ass in video games every Friday night.” Lydia stumbled over her verb tenses, hoping to god and any higher being that was listening that Scott did not notice. 

Stiles’ eyes narrowed and Scott barked out a laugh. 

“Okay, now that is a false iteration of the facts. Scott is the one that started inviting me over to play video games and you never expressed any interest-” Stiles began to protest before stopping himself abruptly, “I can’t believe I’m arguing this with you right now.”

Lydia raised her eyebrows and Scott shook his head, looking down at the floor and smiling before placing a hand on Stiles’ shoulder, “Okay dude. I’m going to head out. We’ll catch up tomorrow for Sunday brunch?” 

“Hm? Yeah, yeah I’ll text you.” Stiles looked up distractedly and nodded at him, watching as Scott let himself out before shaking himself out of his stupor and turning to Lydia once again. 

“You feeling better?” He asked softly, looking down at her. Lydia realizing once again just how tall he was as she was forced to look up at him even in heels. 

“Yeah. Thanks. For the pillow and water. And remembering, you know, about the pillow and water.” Lydia pressed her lips together and smiled, trying not to let herself be consumed by the humiliation that she had very recently lost every ounce of collectedness she had once prided herself as hoarding. Her only comfort that it was in front of Stiles and not a total stranger. 

Lydia forced herself not to be reminded of the fact that this Stiles very likely was a stranger to her. A Stiles that had lived at least thirteen years without her. 

“Yeah well I pretty much wrote the manual for Lydia Martin freak-outs way back when, so I figured I’d give it a try and see if it still helped.” Stiles raked his hand through his hair, pulling his lips down and rocking back and forth on his heels, letting his eyes wander from Lydia to the window to the patio of his apartment, staring outside for a moment, “I should uh, probably walk you back to your place. Do you remember where you live?” 

“I think so.” Lydia tried not to let herself feel bogged down with disappointment and fear, wondering how desperate it would seem if she asked Stiles to stay with her for just a little while longer. 

“Okay, let me just grab my coat.” Stiles turned and left in the direction of what Lydia presumed to be his bedroom and took the brief moment to truly wander his apartment. 

She found herself walking towards a wall-length corkboard, hung up and draped in red and yellow string with pictures hiding underneath the yarn’s web and post it notes sporadically placed throughout the collage. Lydia tried to read what was written on one of the post its, but somehow Stiles’ handwriting had gotten worse with age and she was interrupted with Stiles calling out her name before she could spend more time decoding it. 

“Coming!” Lydia shouted back, walking towards the front door where Stiles stood waiting for her. 

“Alright, let’s get this show on the road.” Stiles announced, opening the door for her, letting Lydia walk through and into the hallway before he followed, shutting the door soundly behind him. 

Lydia couldn’t help but find herself wondering how much had truly changed since she was thirteen. As she watched Stiles stuff his hands in his jacket pockets though, shoulders slightly tense, eyes averted from hers, and his lips turned down ever so slightly, she thought maybe more had changed than she could currently comprehend. 

\---  
Lydia silently thanked god for her photographic memory and the bills sitting on her side table that were probably still laying scattered in a disarray on her floor from this morning because they were her only means of finding her apartment again. 

By the time she and Stiles had made their way back to her apartment, Lydia had learned that Stiles currently worked at a local law firm, practicing mostly criminal cases as a defense attorney, and that he had moved to San Francisco because it was closest to his father and Scott, and that he and Lydia truly hadn’t even seen each other, let alone spoken, since high school. 

He never mentioned Christmas six years ago when he saw her through a frosted window. 

“Is this you?” Stiles pointed up at her apartment building, and Lydia nodded silently, trying to quell the rising panic. 

“Alright, well, it was nice seeing you, Lydia,” Stiles shoved his hands deeper into his pockets and rocked back on his heels, giving Lydia a small encouraging smile, “Good luck, okay?” 

Lydia bit her lip and smiled back and nodded, “Bye.” 

She watched him nod and smile softly once more before turning and walking away. The further he got, the more Lydia’s throat tightened and stomach lurched, “Stiles!” 

He turned around and raised his eyebrows in question, “What year is it?” 

Stiles’ eyes widened as he looked from Lydia and back to the street he was about to head down towards, seemingly internally debating something with himself until one side won and he shook his head and walked back towards Lydia, “Come on, I’ll walk you back into your apartment. Maybe you have some yearbooks in there that will spark a memory.” 

Lydia let herself take a deep breath and smiled at Stiles as he held the door to the lobby open to her, nodding to her until she walked through, “It’s 2017.” 

2017\. Lydia did the math in her head quickly. She was thirty years old. 

Thirty. 

“Oh my god. We’re thirty?” Lydia finally uttered in shock as she and Stiles walked into her apartment, “God. We’re so old. How did this happen?” 

“Time is a cruel mistress.” Stiles replied casually, inspecting her apartment until he found a bookcase and made a beeline towards it, kneeling in front of it and scanning the titles until he finally grabbed one on her lowest shelf, pulling it out and looking at it with distaste before turning to hand it to Lydia. 

Lydia looked at him curiously before looking down at the cover of the book, realizing quickly that it was her senior high school yearbook, ‘Beacon Hills High School’ printed across the cover in perfect script. 

Turning towards her couch, she walked over and plopped down, opening it and staring at the pictures, wondering if she really would begin to remember her life, if somehow she really was  
suffering from a very targeted form of amnesia. 

She turned the pages until she was finally shocked with her own face, although younger than the face she was currently wearing and older than the face she wore yesterday, staring back at her. She was standing in the middle of a gaggle of girls, all wearing designer clothes, her hair perfectly curled, lips cherry red and glossed, stretched into a smile. 

Lydia leaned forward closer to the pages, memorizing every detail of her face, looking over to the other girls who had their arms around her, realizing she did recognize the faces, “Stiles, was I a Six Chick?” Lydia looked up in shock, stunned happiness rushing through her.

“Yep. Pretty much their leader.” Stiles’ voice echoed throughout her apartment as she heard her refrigerator open and shut, Stiles wandering back into the living room holding a bottle of water, looking over her shoulder at the pages splayed out on Lydia’s legs. 

“I wonder what ever happened to Ashley Whitman.” Lydia wondered aloud, letting her finger linger over her face, contemplating how she had managed to beat her into submission, wishing she could remember. 

“Who cares?” Stiles muttered around the water bottle tipping into his mouth. 

Lydia made a noise of agreement through pursed lips, flipping through the pages again, stopping when she made it to the Prom section and sighing happily as she saw her face yet again, lips painted red, a crown sitting atop her head, and her arms wrapped around Jackson Whittemore. 

“I was prom queen.” Lydia whispered in amazement, letting her gaze linger on the picture, wishing so desperately that she could remember what it had felt like to wear that crown with Jackson on her arm, everyone staring at her and knowing she was the one in charge, that she had control. 

“Yep.” Stiles drew out the ‘y’ sound and popped out the ‘p’ before turning and continuing his inspection of her apartment. 

“And I went with Jackson Whittemore.” Lydia continued, still staring at the photo as though she could create her own memory of this missing event in her mind if she just looked hard enough. 

“Yep.” 

“This is incredible. I can’t believe I got everything I ever wanted,” Lydia wondered in amazement as she caressed the glossy yearbook photos, looking up towards the ceiling and smiling to herself, sighing happily and looking down again to consume the photos in front of her.

She could hear Stiles pacing her open apartment, touching the things on her walls as he bitterly mumbled, “Yeah, Lydia. You got it all. Congratulations.” 

Lydia would have looked at the photos for an indiscriminate amount of time, studying every single detail, if a noise hadn’t rung out through the apartment, shocking her out of her trance. 

“I think that’s you.” Stiles muttered, gesturing towards a phone laying on a side table on the other side of her couch. Sighing, Lydia moved over to grab the phone, looking at the displayed notification alerting her to the Gala for the University tonight. 

“Oh my god. I have a Gala tonight. With my colleagues. It’s black tie.” Lydia looked up and smiled at Stiles in excitement, waving her phone in the air towards him. 

Stiles had already moved though towards her front door, turning around and shaking his head while chuckling softly, even though Lydia couldn’t hear an ounce of humor in his laugh, “Great. Sounds like you’re back to your old self, so I’m gonna go ahead and head out. Glad those yearbooks could help.”

“Do you want to go? It could be fun to get all dressed up. Like that one time your dad was honored at the police banquet?” 

Stiles’ eyebrows crinkled together and he shook his head slightly before saying, “No, I have some work I have to do, but thanks. I’m sure you’ll have more than enough fun for the both of us.” 

“We both have jobs now.” Lydia stated in amazement, her eyes traveling down to her hands sitting on her lap near her discarded phone as she quickly counted her fingers, “I can’t believe it.” 

“Yeah, totally crazy.” Stiles had now shuffled closer to her front door, obviously eager to leave and Lydia pursed her lips because she couldn’t understand how everything could be so perfect and so wrong all at once. 

“I guess life does move pretty fast if you don’t stop and look every once in a while because I don’t remember stopping and looking at all and I’ve missed it. I’ve missed almost all of it.” 

Lydia looked up at Stiles again only to see that he had been staring at her this whole time with crinkled eyebrows and those eyes that had looked at her three days ago in her bedroom when he sat in front of her and told her that she always looked beautiful. 

He never responded to Lydia’s observation. 

Instead, he just cleared his throat and pointed towards the front door pivoting his feet, but keeping his head faced towards her on the couch and his mouth turned down in a sad smile Lydia had only seen on his face a handful of times, “Bye, Lydia.” 

Lydia watched as he turned and grabbed the doorknob, twisting it, “Stiles!” 

“Yeah?” 

Lydia pushed herself up and off the couch, jogging over to Stiles near the front door, standing close enough to him that she had to truly look up to see his eyes, “What if this isn’t some alternate universe that I’ve somehow traveled to. What if what I wished for actually happened?” 

“Alternate universe?” 

Lydia stared back, one eyebrow raised.

“Then Lydia, you got everything you ever wished for. You might as well enjoy it.” His voice was soft as he looked down at her and smiled that sad smile again, hand reaching for the doorknob and opening the door. 

Lydia breathed out a laugh and looked down, pursing her lips in contemplation as she stood in the doorway, looking up to watch Stiles’ back walk down towards the elevators, “Stiles!” 

He stopped and shook his head before turning around, quirking up one side of his lips, “Yeah?” 

“Arivaderci.” 

Stiles smiled and snorted out a laugh, “I’ll see you.” 

“Stiles.” Lydia warned, both eyebrows raised and a smile threatening to spread across her lips.

Stiles shook his head again and stared at the floor and his feet before looking up at her and letting himself truly smile, “Au Revoir.” 

Lydia laughed and waved her fingers at him, turning to go back into her apartment as Stiles turned to make his way to the elevators, shutting the door softly behind her and making a pact right then and there that there would be no more door slamming in her life. 

As Lydia wandered back into her living room and saw the yearbook sitting open on the end of her couch, she made a quick list in her mind, pros and cons of the future thus far, 

Pros: Amazing job, independence, obviously doing well for herself financially, Fields Medal.

Cons: Apparently not well-liked by her colleagues, boyfriend who doesn’t understand the importance of good upkeep for hardwood floors and calls her ‘cupcake,’ no Stiles. 

As Lydia stared back at her apartment door, she couldn’t quite determine which list outweighed the other. 

Everything she had ever wanted.

But no one worth sharing it with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well guys. This took a little longer than planned because it is really difficult and heart wrenching to write Stiles and Lydia in a universe where they aren’t together because they’re fucking canon now.
> 
>  
> 
> Anyways, as always please let me know what you think. 
> 
> PS. Right at this very moment, Lydia is helping Stiles "move into his dorm." Ruminate on that.

**Author's Note:**

> Ever since I hurled myself into the trash can that is the Teen Wolf fandom, I have been unable to escape this idea. I love Matty/Jen and Lydia/Stiles with all of my heart and I hope I can do them justice. 
> 
> Let me know what you think!


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